


The Door to the Lost Dolls

by M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)



Category: L'amica geniale | The Neapolitan Novels - Elena Ferrante
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Doorway Between Specific Points In Time, F/F, POV First Person, Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019, Pastiche, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22391851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/pseuds/M%20J%20Holyoke
Summary: Tina and Nu weren’t meant primarily as a message, cruel or kind. They’d been sent to me as an invitation.An invitation. Did I dare accept it? In the end, I didn’t hesitate.
Relationships: Lila Cerullo/Elena Greco
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2019





	The Door to the Lost Dolls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radchaai (rigormorphis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rigormorphis/gifts).



I didn’t realize what the dolls meant at first. When I’d opened that newspaper wrapping, I’d thought they were a message from the past, sent to me by Lila. I’d thought she was mocking me. _You see?_ those cheap, ugly dolls smelling of mold seemed to say. _Your friendship was built on a lie. Your entire life until now, Elena Greco, is a lie._

That message had been too cruel to consider for long. So what if there was more than a little truth to it? I’d told myself that couldn’t be what Lila had meant. No, she’d been trying to tell me something about herself: She’d finally broken free of the dark confinement that had been her life and now, at the end, in old age, she could live exactly as she desired.

It’d taken me several days to understand the truth. Lies throughout our lives and the tantalizing possibility of freedom at the end of it—both were equally true. But Tina and Nu weren’t meant primarily as a message, cruel or kind. They’d been sent to me as an invitation.

An invitation. Did I dare accept it? In the end, I didn’t hesitate. 

The drive from Turin to Naples felt strangely insubstantial. I was alone in the car, no radio, no music, only the hum of the engine as it revved to keep me company. When I was a little girl, even the ocean had felt impossibly far away. As an old woman, hundreds of kilometers have come to mean nothing. Time also transmutes distance . . . or so it seemed to me that day.

Although the city had grown up around the neighborhood, our apartment building still stood. I saw signs of ongoing refurbishment; a paint can was propping the door to the entrance open. Anyone could enter, no key required.

The door to the cellars had been replaced. Where once it had been broken—one of the panels hanging from a single hinge, crudely secured to the second panel by a chain that could be forced wide enough to allow slender young bodies to slip through—there was instead a modern, fire-resistant utility door, metallic, heavy, and counterweighted such that, if opened, it would close again on its own and relock automatically.

This door caught my attention immediately because it too had been opened and was, at this very moment, slowly swinging shut. _Ah, probably just a maintenance worker,_ I told myself as I rushed forward to catch the edge of the door with the palm of my hand.

I pushed the door wide open again and stepped through, down into the cellar. “Lila?” I called.

Five stone stairs lead down into the damp, dimly lit space, exactly as I remembered. I stepped carefully, gravel and broken glass crunching underfoot; I did not want to trip. I saw a multitude of vague shapes—boxes, bags, old furniture, the detritus of generations. The modern, fire-resistant utility door shut softly behind me. The latch made a snicking noise. I barely registered it. I called out again, “Lila, are you there?”

“Lenù. I knew you would come.”

She was sitting in an old wooden chair beside a dusty floor lamp with a ripped shade. She looked small and gray, bent with age, but her eyes were as shiny and hard as ever, like rocks washed up on the beach, wet with seawater and polished smooth by the tides. In another life, perhaps, she could have been a queen.

“What happened?” I asked. I felt my indignation rising, like bitter bile in the back of my throat. “Everyone’s been going crazy looking for you! And this whole time you’ve been—why—?”

Lila dismissed my questions with an imperious wave of her arm and looked away. At first I thought it was shame, that she didn’t want to meet my accusing eyes. But then I realized where she was looking: towards the narrow, barred opening at street level where once we had—

I looked just in time to see Tina fall through, landing with a soft plop on a cellar floor. Nu followed her moments later.

I’d picked up the two dolls before I was consciously aware of having done so. They were Tina and Nu, no question, the same two dolls but also _not_ the same two dolls I was certain I’d left behind in Turin. _These_ dolls were not moldy; _these_ dolls looked well-loved but relatively new. They smelled of innocence, of childhood.

“Lila,” I began. “H-how did . . . ?”

Lila rose from the chair and pulled me down behind a tall wardrobe. “Hide!” she commanded as the cellar door seemed to shift on broken hinges and two children slipped surreptitiously through.

 _The children were us_. Me and Lila. I gaped, stunned. It wasn’t possible! And yet it was—they were—like someone had made a motion picture version of my memories. My cry of terror on seeing the gas mask. The search for the dolls which weren’t there. (They were in my hands; fingers clenched so tight that my arthritic joints ached.) Lila, giving up, wanting to leave. Me, too afraid to continue the search in the cellar by myself. And finally, pinning the blame on Don Achille.

Lila refused to answer my questions once we were alone again. And truth be told, I wasn’t certain what the right questions to ask were, anyway. “You’ll see. Wait,” she said. And: “Give me the dolls now.”

I obeyed, not knowing what to think. Lila held the dolls gently, regarded them tenderly. She stroked her thumb against Tina’s plastic face.

We waited until the door opened again. It was Lila’s child self. She’d come again to the cellar, alone this time. Her expression was determined, fierce.

I’d been sick for days after losing Tina, I recalled. I’d fled Lila’s presence after coming up from the cellar, running upstairs back to my home, stomach churning with nausea and blinded by tears. I’d cried myself to sleep. It’d never once occurred to me to wonder what Lila might have done in my absence. I’d never asked, and she’d never volunteered to tell me.

Lila—old Lila, _my_ Lila—took my hand and pulled me out from behind the wardrobe. Lila—child Lila, _lost_ Lila—squeaked when she saw us. What did she see, I wonder? Two women, old like fairytale witches, holding Tina and Nu hostage? What terrible price would these witches demand that Lila pay for their safe return?

But Lila simply held the dolls out to her child self and said, “You may take both of them. But keep them hidden. Don’t tell anybody—especially not Lenù. When the time is right, it’ll be Lenù’s turn to have both dolls. You’ll know when. Do you understand me?”

Lila nodded silently.

“You get to keep them for a while, but you don’t get to keep them forever. Someday it’ll be Lenù’s turn. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Lila whispered, eyes round and huge. She was looking at me, at how Lila and I were holding hands.

“Good.” Lila gave the dolls to her child self. Her child self snatched up the dolls and ran. We were alone in the cellar yet again.

“So that’s how you knew,” I said. I thought I was starting to understand.

“Let’s go, Lenù,” Lila said. She hadn’t yet let go of my hand.

I stared at our clasped hands. I stared at Lila. “I’m not sorry,” she said. And then she pulled me in close and kissed me full on the lips. I could taste her tongue against mine.

By unspoken agreement, we ascended the cellar’s stone steps, Lila first, me following right behind. When she pushed the door open, the daylight almost blinded me. My head ached, and my eyes were brimming with joyous tears. I smiled. I didn’t know yet where—or _when_ —we’d be going, but I knew I wanted to go there with Lila. And we would go—

Together.


End file.
